By Michael Caron
Are you frustrated constantly by trying to connect to prospects and getting their voicemail? I hear this complaint from many of our clients.
Times have changed. In the early 90’s before voicemail was ubiquitous, studies showed that one business person attempting to contact another business person would get through 22% of the time. Sounds low doesn’t it? But it gets worse. Today’s stats are more like 10%! That means that 9 out of 10 times, you’re going to get voicemail.
Instead of looking at this marvel of communication engineering as being your enemy, it can be your friend - at least in the short term. Before you say I’ve lost my selling marbles, let me explain. How many of you can convey a compelling description of your product’s benefits and features in 30 words or less. Some of you may be able but wouldn’t it be nice if you had 2 full minutes? Of course it would.
Well, that’s the difference between getting a prospect on the phone right off the bat and being able to leave a voicemail message. I far prefer to leave a carefully crafted, practiced, voicemail message as my first voice contact with a prospective customer. You can’t get cut off, you can build some “personality” and trust and with many systems, you also have the added benefit of erasing it and doing it again if you screw up. Be careful to leave the message as best you possibly can and finish before trying to erase it though in case you can’t!
Obviously you eventually want to connect in real time with the prospect and there are specific techniques to drastically increase your chances when the time is right but that will have to wait for a future issue!
Using voicemail to your advantage is part of Northbound’s Customer-Centric Selling program.
